This is such a cool idea, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more “daily deals” type sites trying the Gaypon concept. Basically, they are a regular deals site, but a portion of the proceeds go to gay and lesbian charities, plus the companies featured in the deals are specifically vetted as being gay-friendly. It’s a great bit of niche marketing, and supports some very worthwhile organizations.

Here’s a bit more background on Gaypon:

Gaypon offers deals, discounts, coupons & special offers from gay friendly businesses that support the LGBT. We make arraignments with businesses that agree to extend special savings to Gaypon subscribers.

Gaypon deals vary from everyday things like restaurants, fashion and entertainment to travel, florists, gay wedding planners, even LGBT greeting cards. Gaypon brings you the ultimate in luxury from the latest gadget to professional services, skin care, even health & fitness merchants. Sometimes, we’ll even feature coupons for multimedia downloads like music & movies, plus live theater and concerts. Often our deals are for online merchants to make it as easy as possible for you to support businesses that stand up for equality and have zero tolerance for discrimination. Gaypon donates a healthy portion of proceeds to charities and organization that support the gay community, like The Trevor Project who focuses on crisis & suicide prevention amongst LGBTQ youth, and Affirmations, which is one of the largest LGBT community centers in the United States.

Our goal at Gaypon is to offer discounts to the things you do every day and introduce you to new things around town, all while saving money and supporting businesses that are proud of their diverse staff and clientele. Gaypon was started to help spread the word about businesses who support equality.

Gaypon recognizes businesses that not only cater to the LGBTQ community but also hire a diverse staff. While you have heard of all of the big, gay friendly corporations, you may not realize that your local ‘mom-and-pop’ businesses are just as committed to equality. This is where Gaypon shines! We promote fair and just retailers of all sizes and allow them share the spotlight with large corporations.

For a business to become a featured Gaypon merchant, we perform a background check and look for complaints from customers and employees of discrimination, poor hiring practices, etc. We also use various tools, like the Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index” that rates American workplaces on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality.

More: http://www.dailygaypon.com/about.php#ixzz1WZ5CQh00

Personally I hope concepts like this take off around more charities and deals. It could be a great way for organizations to raise money, along with a way for businesses and deals sites to connect with their community. In the meantime, I’m off to encourage everyone I know to sign up for Gaypon, and I hope you do too!

Carly has been a gadget fiend for a long time, going back to her first PDA (a Palm M100). She quickly went from researching what PDA to buy to following tech news closely and keeping up with the latest and greatest stuff. She loves writing about ebooks because they combine her two favorite activities; reading anything and everything, and talking about fun new tech toys. What could be better?